Police recover stolen tyres worth Sh8m

May 23, 2012 3:15 pm

By BERNARD MOMANYI, The tyres were imported from China/XINHUA-FileNAIROBI, Kenya May 23 – Police in Nairobi have recovered tyres worth over Sh8 million which were stolen while in transit from Mombasa.

The tyres imported from China were recovered by police at a wholesale shop in downtown Nairobi.

“We had been following them for several days now… we finally got them,” a senior police officer told journalists at the wholesale shop where officers were packing the tyres into a truck to be transported to the Flying Squad headquarters.

Flying Squad chief Munga Nyale said the owner of the shop fled when he learnt officers were planning to raid it but three other suspects are in custody.

A lawyer representing the owner told police he would present his client to them.

The lawyer had earlier protested that police were searching his client’s premise without a search warrant.

A police officer involved in the operation said a suspect had appeared in a Mombasa court over the same matter.

“It is a wide investigation that is being carried out both here and Mombasa. All the suspects will appear in court,” he said.

Cases of goods stolen while in transit have been on the increase, mainly on the Mombasa-Nairobi highway where trucks are diverted and cargo offloaded.

Earlier this month, construction materials worth more than Sh10 million were found in a go down in Kariobangi where a bulk of them had been sold.

Police believe truck drivers have been colluding with criminals to divert cargo that is in transit.

In some few cases however, drivers are drugged and dumped in the forest before their vehicles are driven off to unknown destinations only to be recovered days or weeks later.

BERNARD MOMANYI is the News Editor at Capital FM. He commands over a decade of experience in news gathering having worked in both print and electronic media. He holds a BSc degree in Information Sciences from Moi University and is now pursuing a Masters Degree at the University of Nairobi.